


Pure Blood

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Violence, unpleasantness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only a dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pure Blood

There were hands reaching for Severus in the darkness – a hundred faces surrounded him, haloed in that pale green light, and hands reached for him, fingers pinched him, and he woke.  
  
The night noises of the Slytherin dormitory were unchanged, with the faint rasp of snores overlaying the steady thrum of the warding spells placed around beds and trunks. Avery grunted in his sleep, a hard sound that echoed through the stillness. The echo of Severus's heartbeat thudded loud in his own ears, and he bit down on his lip, tasting salt-sweat and bitter night.   
  
It was only a dream.  
  
Severus turned to lie on his side, his cheek pressed against the cool pillow and his pulse echoing at his temple, where the skin was thin and the blood flowed close to the surface. His blood was not pure enough.   
  
His heartbeat echoed against the pillow, rasping against the stiff linen like a wild, struggling thing, like a mouse trapped in a cage and held on the platform of McGonagall's desk for some horribly painful Transfiguration. Trapped in his body, his heartbeat could not escape.  
  
His mother had been in the circle, surrounded by all of the faceless figures – dark robes fluttering, white masks gleaming with the green light. She'd lain at their feet, pale and small next to their heavy black boots, and Severus had been kept from her. He'd been held away from her, kept out of the circle, and he'd had no way to save her.   
  
There had been nothing left to save, at the end.  
  
She had heard nothing – Severus could tell by the pinched lines at the corners of her eyes, by the way that she watched only him. She had heard nothing of the discourse on blood purity and proper places and contamination – she heard nothing of purity as she lost her blood.  
  
Severus bit his lip harder. If he broke the skin, he would taste the blood himself, and the taste would drive away the sight. Fisting his hands in the stiff cotton sheets, biting his lip, he held his eyes open and refused to blink. He would not see his mother lying in a pool of her own blood. He would not.  
  
The clock in the common room chimed midnight, the deep echoes rolling up the stone staircase and into the boys' dormitory. Severus felt each stroke of the clock ring through him, running up his spine until it pooled there, behind his heart and lungs, where the blood was hot and thick. Unclenching his fists, he pinched himself – it was not there, he had not seen the blood, it had not happened.  
  
It was only a dream.  
  
Severus had a leather-bound journal under his pillow, a stub of a Muggle pencil tucked in the spine. He relaxed each of his muscles, one by one, smoothing out the stiffness until he lay quiet and still in his bed. He smoothed the wrinkles from the sheets, until there was no shadow cast on his body, no hint of the flickering torchlight or the embers from the fireplace. All the hills and valleys of the wrinkled sheets were gone, and there was no place for the shadow to catch upon, nowhere for it to rest on him.   
  
Only when he was safe, as prone and pristine as a corpse in a coffin, did he reach under his pillow for the journal. He rolled over onto his stomach, careful to keep the sheets crisp and neat, and conjured light with his wand. Tiny stars burst out, hovering over him, and miniature constellations formed in the dark dormitory. He craned his neck to look up at them.   
  
The night sky had not been disturbed by his dreaming – the world had not changed.   
  
He found a clean page near the end of his journal and began at once. Arithmancy to calculate the wand movement, the angle and flick and position, and Latin declensions for the spell itself – the stars had burnt out, arching through the air and fizzing to cold deaths on his bed, before he was finished. He didn't need the light, in the end.  
  
Severus did not sleep again that night – he lay, stiff and silent in his bed, and practiced the new spell. In his mind, he perfected the wand movement – swish and cut, swish and cut, the wand falling at the correct angle, and his lips formed the sound of the spell, over and over again.   
  
It had only been a dream, but he would be prepared.  
  
Cursing invisible enemies, he vowed to defend his mother. If the Death Eaters made her bleed, he would be there to protect her – in the inner circle if need be, with his wits and ingenuity, his own spells that had no counter, all of his magic, all of his potions, everything that he had and everything that he was. If the Death Eaters made his mother bleed ....  
  
In the end, even Purebloods bled.  
  
"Sectumsempra," he whispered, and the noise was not loud enough to rise over the thrum of the dormitory. It was not loud enough to wake the dead or the Death Eaters, it was not loud enough to warn them, but it was loud enough for Severus. He would protect his mother.


End file.
